I’m delighted to be one of those leading off the blogtour for The Torments – Michael J Malone’s sequel to The Murmurs which introduced us to Annie Jackson and her twin brother Lewis. I’ll say straight off that you don’t necessarily need to have read the prior instalment, you could jump straight in with The Torments, ignoring any questions raised by mentions of ‘The Bodies in the Glen’, they’re not relevant to this mystery. You will read from the blurb that Annie is afflicted by ‘the murmurs’, a curse passed down the female line of her family, and the first book tells how she discovers she has it. Annie has constant murmurs in the background of her mind. When she looks at someone who is about to die, their faces morph into skulls and she gets a vision of their death, warning them doesn’t prevent it happening.
The Torments begins with a gothic prologue, in which we meet a creature from Scottish folklore, the Baobhan Sith, a succubus, centuries old, who is waiting to be summoned in the here and now. Uh-oh! went my alarm bell, looks like we’re in for some black magic. However, don’t let that put you off. This novel may have supernatural overtones, but they’re well-handled, it’s a people-led mystery and people do the most awful things…
To the narrative proper. Annie, thanks to the notoriety she gained from that previous case, has left Glasgow and lives in a remote cottage on the Scottish coast where far from people, the murmurs are quiet. She does have a slightly strange encounter in the village shop, but otherwise it’s quiet until she bravely goes to a cafe and the murmurs tell her a young man is going to die – she says ‘get your tires checked’ on the way out, but he crashes his car anyway – his father works out who she is and throws paint at her front door.
But there’s no time to dwell on that, Lewis gets in touch. The son of their adoptive mother’s sister, Damien, is missing. Damien had dropped his little son back to his mother and no-one has seen him since. Could Annie use her murmurs to help find him, the police aren’t interested. It’s difficult to say no to ‘family’. So Lewis and Annie travel to Glasgow, Annie with a new found hagstone tucked into her bra, which seems to keep the murmurs quieter, enabling her to be out and about more.
Every few chapters, we change PoV from Annie or Lewis, to a few decades previously where we meet Ben and Sylvia at a boarding school. Ben and Sylvia are being groomed by a devilish teacher, to join an old black arts order. As the narrative goes on, we will discover how and who they grow up to be and how that intersects with Annie and Lewis’s quest. As you might surmise, things will get increasingly dangerous for Annie and Lewis as they zero in on what happened to Damien.
In Malone’s hands, the supernatural elements of the story are again handled very well. Annie’s murmurs feel almost natural, and the legend of the Baobhan Sith is part of Scottish folklore, so that there are those who would work to summon her, even in the 21st century, is not beyond belief. The tension mounts steadily as heart in mouth, we hope that Annie and Lewis will survive the onslaught to come, as well as solve the mystery. Malone does the suspense so well, and we get to know his protagonists even better in this second outing for Annie and Lewis. Another super mystery which gets the thumbs up from me.
Source: Review copy – thank you. Orenda paperback original, 300 pages.
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Thanks for the blog tour support x